motionless.
'Ilya Stepanitch!' I cried, 'is that you? I gave up expecting you.
Come in. Is the door locked?'
Tyeglev shook his head. 'I do not intend to come in,' he pronounced in
a hollow tone. 'I only want to ask you to give this letter to the
commanding officer to-morrow.'
He gave me a big envelope sealed with five seals. I was
astonished--however, I took the envelope mechanically. Tyeglev at once
walked away into the middle of the road.
'Stop! stop!' I began. 'Where are you going? Have you only just come?
And what is the letter?'
'Do you promise to deliver it?' said Tyeglev, and moved away a few
steps further. The fog blurred the outlines of his figure. 'Do you
promise?'
'I promise ... but first--'
Tyeglev moved still further away and became a long dark blur.
'Good-bye,' I heard his voice. 'Farewell, Ridel, don't remember evil
against me.... And don't forget Semyon....'
And the blur itself vanished.
This was too much. 'Oh, the damned
must always be straining after effect!' I felt uneasy, however; an
involuntary fear clutched at my heart. I flung on my great-coat and
ran out into the road.
XIII
Yes; but where was I to go? The fog enveloped me on all sides. For
five or six steps all round it was a little transparent--but further
away it stood up like a wall, thick and white like cotton wool. I
turned to the right along the village street; our house was the last
but one in the village and beyond it came waste land overgrown here
and there with bushes; beyond the waste land, a quarter of a mile from
the village, there was a birch copse through which flowed the same
little stream that lower down encircled our village. The moon stood, a
pale blur in the sky--but its light was not, as on the evening before,
strong enough to penetrate the smoky density of the fog and hung, a
broad opaque canopy, overhead. I made my way out on to the open ground
and listened.... Not a sound from any direction, except the calling of
the marsh birds.
'Tyeglev!' I cried. 'Ilya Stepanitch!! Tyeglev!!'
My voice died away near me without an answer; it seemed as though the
fog would not let it go further. 'Tyeglev!' I repeated.
No one answered.
I went forward at random. Twice I struck against a fence, once I
nearly fell into a ditch, and almost stumbled against a peasant's
horse lying on the ground. 'Tyeglev! Tyeglev!' I cried.
All at once, almost behind me, I heard a low voice, 'Well, here I am.
What do you want of me?'
I turned round quickly.
Before me stood Tyeglev with his hands hanging at his sides and with
no cap on his head. His face was pale; but his eyes looked animated
and bigger than usual. His breathing came in deep, prolonged gasps
through his parted lips.
'Thank God!' I cried in an outburst of joy, and I gripped him by both
hands. 'Thank God! I was beginning to despair of finding you. Aren't
you ashamed of frightening me like this? Upon my word, Ilya
Stepanitch!'
'What do you want of me?' repeated Tyeglev.
'I want ... I want you, in the first place, to come back home with me.
And secondly, I want, I insist, I insist as a friend, that you explain
to me at once the meaning of your actions--and of this letter to the
colonel. Can something unexpected have happened to you in Petersburg?'
